Day 1: Land’s End to Blackwater (43.64 miles)

We start the day in Penzance, and after the first of two weeks’ worth of big breakfasts, saddle up just after 9am to cycle the 13 miles to Land’s End. It’s a relief after months’ of discussion and planning, and the best part of the day before on the train, to finally get on a bike and start turning the pedals, and we enjoy cycling next to the harbour in Penzance. However, after a long and steep hill out of Mousehole just outside Penzance, we’re quickly reminded of what many people have told us – that the route through Cornwall and Devon is probably the hardest part. This end of Cornwall certainly doesn’t seem short of hills.

We’ve been pre-warned that Land’s End is more of a tourist destination than something to inspire the intrepid traveller attempting to journey from one end of the UK to the other, and so we’re ready for the big signs, exhibitions, and shops. We bypass all this (other than for Al to have his picture taken underneath a giant Tardis…), and head for the cliffs. We stop to enjoy the view, before having a couple of ‘photos taken to prove we were there, and by eleven o’clock we’ve started our ride from Land’s End.

The novelty of the landscape is fresh for us – the hills, plants, and coastline look alien, the mist rolling round the hills in the near distance add an element of mystery, and the road we take to St. Ives is an inviting road to cycle. We make good progress, and around lunchtime we’re dropping down into St. Ives, picking our way through the tourists to the harbour. We sit on a bench overlooking this, eat pasties, and drink tea.

Lunch over, we’re back on the road, and after stopping briefly at Portreath, head towards our first stop at Blackwater, outside St. Agnes. We’ve not gone far, when we’re flagged down by a motorcyclist to help him right his motorcycle – he’d just managed to start it into a wall. Cycling round the country, righting wrongs… that’s us!

One of my concerns about the ride had been the navigation. This has gone very well so far – I’d made up route cards for each day, and this has worked well. However, once we leave the B road we’re on to navigate the minor roads, we miss a turning, and then it starts to rain. A stop at a house for directions sets us in the right direction, and we’re soon walking our bikes up the drive to Briardene Farm, with a cup of tea waiting for us.

We don’t have long to get cleaned up, as there aren’t many places to eat around here, and the recommended transport café closes at seven, so we’re out quickly, given a lift down by our host for the night, and are soon eating fish and chips and reflecting on a successful first day. I’m pleased, as I felt it was important for our morale that our first day went well, and we stop at the pub on the way back for a pint of Tribute.

Day 2: Blackwater to Tavistock (74.81 miles)

If our first day leaves us feeling that this ride is achievable, our second day is a dose of reality. It started with us meeting one of the ‘characters’ that popped up on our ride. We’d been told by our host that there were a family staying the night who were also cycling from Land’s end to John O’Groats. We’d joked about this, as we were told it was a family of four – Mum, Dad, and two boys – and couldn’t imagine what sort of boys would want to do this with their Mum and Dad. We met the family at breakfast, where they exude a disgusting level of health and jollity, and we are immediately shown up for our comparative lack of geographical knowledge, grasp of our route, preparation, and organization. The two boys don’t say anything, and sit their eating their breakfasts. They are soon nicknamed the Flanders…

Our route today takes us along the coast to Newquay, from where we turn inland, up the hills, and then onto some busy roads towards Bodmin where we have planned to stop for lunch. I don’t enjoy these roads, and am tired from concentrating on the traffic when we stop. We can only find a service station, and don’t think much of Bodmin. We sit on a bench, eating service station sandwiches, and thinking wistfully of St. Ives harbour.

The afternoon’s roads are quieter, but with more climbing, which suits me but not Al. We head to Liskeard, then Callington, where we stop to check the map. It’s apparent at this point that while my navigation is better than we’d expected, my judgement of distance is not. We’d expected today to be sixty miles, but it’s clear that we’ll end up doing more. Keen to avoid cycling any more than we have to, we decide to ask at one of the nearby houses to check our directions. The people we ask go to some pains to make sure we’re on the right track, even ringing ahead to the B&B we’re staying at. Nevertheless, we’re tired by the time we reach our stop for the night at Acorn Cottage, a few miles out from Tavistock, having done about 15 miles more than we’d expected, and finally passed into Devon.

When we arrive, we find a small party in the garden – it turns out it was the 30th birthday of one of our hosts, John, the night before. We’re invited to join, and after having got cleaned up drink a beer with them. With no taxis around, John offers us a lift into Tavistock to find some dinner, and some good advice on places to eat. No fish and chips tonight – we have a big meal of pasta, and another nice pint of Tribute. With still no taxis in evidence, we somewhat sheepishly give John a ring, as he’d offered to drive us back if this had happened, which he duly does. We met many people who were tremendously kind to us on the ride, but Kate and John were exceptionally so – and they keep a great B&B in a lovely part of the world. We go to bed grateful that we’d chanced upon it.

We’ve cycled just over 118 miles.

Day 3: Tavistock to Watchet (87.23 miles)

We bid farewell to Acorn Cottage early, knowing we have a longer day ahead of us again. We drop down into Tavistock, and pick up the road into Dartmoor. Dartmoor was an area I’d particularly wanted to include in our ride, and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s a hard cycle ride to cross it, as we climb country lanes out of Tavistock, and then take on hill after hill as the sun ambles ever higher into the sky. But the moor seems beautifully isolated, with the odd sheep meandering its way across the road, and I enjoy the climbs, and the eventual view when we crest the final hill and stop for a rest, elated with the sense of achievement.

After we’ve dropped down from Dartmoor, we push on to Crediton to stop for lunch, which, while it’s an easier ride, nevertheless can’t come soon enough. The look of rage in Al’s eyes when I speculate we have five miles to go, when he’s convinced it’s three, is terrifying, and I realise I’m not the only one in need of a break… It turns out to be about four miles to Credition, and we stop for an ample lunch of sandwiches and coke in a café, and speculation with the locals about the number of fire engines flying down the High Street.

Leaving these matters of import to greater minds than ours, we leave Crediton on the road to Tiverton, and after the left hand turn onto this road, are faced by a hill straight away. I’ve quickly come to realise that my legs don’t like stopping too long, and I usually find things hard going first thing in the day and after lunch. This is the first time in the ride that my legs really start to feel the bite. We’ve now cycled over 150 miles, and I feel like I’m doing this climb on empty. Thankfully we’re soon over the back of the hill, and I start to feel better, but we’re only just over half way, and this is starting to really feel difficult.

Once we’ve reached Tiverton, the route becomes slightly easier, and for the next twenty miles we keep up a reasonable pace as we follow the River Exe through the Exe Valley, with the trees that line the road providing some welcome shade. I find it hard to relax though, as I know from the map that the Brendon Hills lie between us and our destination for the night, and that they don’t look like a kindly range. My eyes are continually drawn to the right, where the hills loom over us, hoping the route will take us through the foothills, rather than over the back of the hills.

Finally we reach Bampton, and I know that we have about fifteen miles to go. One of the judgements Al and I have realised on this ride is that there are delicate judgements to be made about each other’s psychological state. Whereas I really dislike cycling on the busier A roads, with less training and carrying a rucksack, Al has been finding the days harder, and particularly the climbing. I decide now is the time to break the news of impending hilliness to him, so I stop to prepare myself for the climbing, sorting out my food and ensuring I’m comfortable on the bike, and tell Al that I think the last section is going to be hard. He takes it better than I thought he might…

We nearly miss the sign for our turn, as someone had taken the sign away from the direction we’re approaching, and when we look to the milepost, someone has rubbed out the second digit for the distance to Watchet, so all we know is that the first figure is a ‘1’. We joke that it’s probably ‘19’. A mile later it becomes clear it was. For the second day I’ve misjudged the distance, and rather than just over seventy miles, we’ll have done nearer ninety.

The journey through the Brendon Hills is hard, with the climbs both numerous, and a mixture of the long, and the short and sharp, including a couple of 14%s, but when we eventually reach the other side, we see the descent to the coast:


That night we sit outside the Star Inn in Watchet, tired, but drinking a pint of Barn Owl, and waiting for our fish to be cooked, looking towards the harbour. There are worse things to do in life. It’s the sort of evening that lifts the spirits after what, in retrospect for me, was physically the hardest day of the ride.

We’ve done 205.68 miles.

Day 4: Watchet to Bath (60.04 miles)

We’re in a good mood as we leave Watchet. This is due to be one of our shorter days, we feel like we’re out of the ‘foot’ of Britain, we’re anticipating some easier terrain, we’re due to meet Al’s wife Helen, and his son Thomas, at Bath Youth Hostel, and they’ve promised to take us out for a big dinner.

The road doesn’t disappoint, and we keep a high pace up on the road to Wells, where we stop for lunch. We’re keen to get to Bath.

Seven miles from the youth hostel, just after Norton St. Philip in the hills around Bath, our short easy day suddenly gets longer and harder. A spoke goes in my back wheel, leaving it out of true and unrideable, particularly as we know there will be some steep descents in Bath, so I need my brakes functioning properly. Without the tools or the skill to do this job, it doesn’t take us long to decide we’ll have to call Helen and hope she’s reached Bath already.

Luckily Helen has, and by twenty past four, she and Thomas have found us, put my bike in the back of the car, and we set off to find a bike shop, waving to Al as he pushes on to complete the final seven miles to the youth hostel.

All our accommodation has been booked in advance, so we can’t lose a day on this ride. I need to have my bike ready to ride the following morning, and we have a somewhat anxious search round Bath for a bike shop. By the time we’ve located one with the right spoke, we’re five minutes too late and it’s closed. We manage to speak to someone who works there though, and they promise to look at it first thing the next morning.

By the time we get back to the Youth Hostel, get cleaned up, changed, and back down into Bath to find some dinner, it’s eight o’clock. I’m worried about the problem with my bike, and a day that was supposed to be a bit of a break from the long days, has suddenly become much longer, harder, and stressful. Nevertheless, it’s great to see Helen and Thomas, and once we’ve eaten, things seem much better, and we reflect that we’re lucky that if we were going to have a mechanical problem we couldn’t deal with, today was the best day for it to happen.

I’ve cycled 265.72 miles. Al’s cycled 7 extra miles…

Day 5: Bath to St. Briavels (46.28 miles)

Our fifth day was also supposed to be a shorter day, but there’s no lie-in, and not just due to some of the snoring coming from the people sharing our dormitory… I meet Helen for breakfast, and we’re back at John’s Bikes in Bath for nine o’clock. They’re as good as their word, and by half past my wheel’s in one piece, and they’ve assured me that I was just unlucky, rather than the problem being symptomatic of something more serious.

Helen and Thomas have agreed to meet us again in St. Briavels – partly for practical reasons, in case the problem with my wheel should prove to be more than bad luck – but also because it’s been really cheering to see them. By 10.30 am we’re back on bikes, having agreed to see Helen and Thomas (now officially our support team…) in Yate for lunch.

Today the main issue will be navigation – we have to get round Bristol on quieter roads, and down to the Severn Bridge. We’re therefore being careful to make sure we get our turnings right, and I’m cycling gingerly on my newly-repaired wheel. I’ve kept my panniers, as I want to be sure the wheel holds up under load, but Al has given his rucksack to our support team, which makes things much easier for him.

With no problems on the way to Yate, we set off again after lunch feeling much happier. Cycling across the Severn Bridge has been one of the things I’ve particularly looking forward to on this ride, and as we catch our first glimpse of the towers above it, marking our passage into Wales, we start to feel more positive about things. It’s odd picking up the turning onto the Bridge, joining the M48 traffic briefly, before finding the cycle lane, and setting off over the Bridge, where I relish the familiar views that rush by as you cross it by car. The other people cycling across the bridge, and the workers on it seem to be that much friendlier to us too.

Reaching Wales has been a thought that’s preoccupied me, it comes as something of a surprise to realise how close we are to finishing for the day. We quickly pass back out of Wales, into Chepstow, and then pick up the turn to St. Briavels. The road takes us up into the hills again, and whether it’s the shorter day, not having his rucksack, or the thought of seeing Helen and Thomas at the end of it, Al tackles the climb strongly. For the first time I struggle to stay on his wheel, before finally having to drop off, and he flies into St. Briavels. We’ve both enjoyed the day’s riding, and all the anxiety of the previous day has dissipated away.

We’re also amazed by the Youth Hostel at St. Briavels – when we’d read it was St. Briavels Castle, we hadn’t realised that, well, it really was a castle. A proper one! We’re there ahead of Helen and Thomas, so park our bikes in the courtyard, where I check the gearing on Al’s bike which has been playing up, and Al finds out about our room – I’m going to be in the ‘Hanging Room’, while Al and his family are in ‘The Oubliette’.

We get our relaxing night, after all, this night. After dinner at the Youth Hostel, we play with Thomas in the grounds (who tells us there are five ghosts in the castle), and then later, as St. Briavels isn’t far from where he lives, I meet Chris Jones for a drink in the pub next door, and catch up.

We’ve now done 312 miles. My speedo no longer seems to be able to cope with the number of hours we’ve been cycling, so my last recorded average was 12.9mph.

Day 6: St. Briavels to Knighton (65.18 miles)

We wake the next morning to find the castle surrounded by mist, a persistent rain soaking everything. It’s clear we’re going to get wet today, and we could well be starting in wet clothes – we’d washed our clothes the night before, and the hostel’s drying room hasn’t done much drying. We have a rushed breakfast, before trying to dry all our clothes off under hand dryers in the toilets before packing.

Eventually we’re ready to wave goodbye to Helen and Thomas (Thomas tells us we look like “warriors”), and set off into the mist. We drop straight down into the valley at the foot of the Black Mountains, and follow this to Monmouth. By the time we’re out of Monmouth, the rain has stopped, and we pause to put away our rain gear. We’ll be spending the day weaving in and out of the border between England and Wales, but there’s nowhere obvious to stop for lunch, so after midday we start keeping our eyes open for a café or tea room.

This ride was conducive to a number of things, and one of those was compiling lists of things. When we stopped in Grosmont, at the top of a steep hill, we didn’t realise we were about to find a definite contender for the honour of heading our list of ‘Top Five Lunches’. The tea room we’ve stopped outside looks at the slightly fussier end of tea rooms, so we try and tidy ourselves up a bit, put on our best winning smiles, and enter. Things are soon looking up when we’ve got our tea, and found out that not only do they do a cheese ploughmans with a choice of three Welsh cheeses, but these three come from a whole menu of cheeses. This is all topped off by the fact that the boy serving us looks like me at about age 14, and Al has to try hard not to point and giggle at this fact. We have a nice chat with a few people there, who wish us luck on our journey, before we have to leave.

By now we have developed a fairly good system of riding together. Most of the time the person in front has checked the route card, is watching for the right turning, and gives warning in advance when they’ve spotted it so that the person behind is ready for the turn. If there’s some distance between us, the person in front waits at the junction. The system fails horribly around Dorstone. I’m in front, watching for a right turn towards Brewardine, with Al pretty close behind. I see the turn late as it’s a sharp turn on a corner, so I just indicate and make the turn. Round the corner I see the sign indicating that the hill is going to be 1 in 4, and a glance over my shoulder, see Al, so I start tackling the hill. Unfortunately, when I’d seen Al, he was going all the way round the corner, having missed me somehow. The hill is as nasty as the sign suggested – it kicks up hard at first, flattens out a bit, and then just when you think you’re getting to the end, kicks up again. I know Al is still finding the hills hard work, so I expected to wait at the top. Just not for quite as long as I do.

Deciding something must be wrong, I reluctantly start going back down the way I’ve come. I half expect to see him stopped at the side of the road, using industrial strength language about the gradient of the hill, but by the time I get to the bottom and there’s no sign of him, I’ve started to worry seriously. Unsure of what to do, I decide to start carrying on down the road past the turning. On seeing someone mowing their lawn, I ask whether they’ve seen another cyclist on this road. They look at me like I’m mad. I get directions to the nearest payphone, and start across a churchyard, as directed, to find this. As I’m doing this, I spot a flash of yellow from the road, and start shouting Al’s name. The relief is tangible, as are Al’s apologies when he realises quite how tough the hill I’ve now had to do twice is.

After this minor drama, the rest of the day is reasonably straightforward, other than my legs having another off day for the last hour or so. The final climb towards Knighton is hard work, and I really start to suffer. The sight of the George and Dragon, where we’re staying for the night, is welcome indeed.

We’ve now done 377.18 miles.

Day 7: Knighton to Chester (76.57 miles)

The next morning we get down to breakfast, to be told that the building society next door to the pub has been robbed. We can’t help but get the feeling that as official Strangers in Town, we’re prime suspects, so we get on the road as quickly as we can…

After an initial wrong turn, we’re set on our right way by a woman in a garage (“Ooh, I’m sorry to tell you, but it is a big old hill…”) and start the climb out of the valley, through Clun, Bishops Castle, and start our way to Welshpool. After the initial climbs, the roads get a bit easier, and we’re soon in Welshpool for lunch. From Welshpool we take the A road to Oswestry, and it really is unpleasant cycling for me, but they’re fast roads, so we make good progress.

It’s a relief to get off this road, and on to the B roads that we navigate round Wrexham on, passing through Bangor-is-y-Coed, which is lovely.

The day has obviously been too uneventful, as Al’s chain starts playing up, and we spend a few minutes on the side of the road fixing this as best we can, before saying goodbye to Wales, and heading into Chester to find the Youth Hostel.

At the youth hostel we have another encounter with other cyclists doing this ride – a group of lads who are far too enthusiastic for our taste, and we speculate from this and their size that they’re either army lads, or wannabe army lads (backed up the following morning at breakfast by their parting cry of “To battle!”). We also meet two younger cyclists who are not only riding from Land’s End to John O’Groats, but climbing the Three Peaks on their way. They tell us the cycling is harder than the climbing, and that they use the climbing days as rest days.

Dinner at the youth hostel definitely doesn’t make it into our top 5, and we’ve not got the energy to find out if there’s a pub nearby, so we have a quiet night.

We’ve done 453.75 miles.

Day 8: Chester to Slaidburn (84.12 miles)

The main job today is to navigate our way between Liverpool and Manchester, with all the urban areas between them, and it looks like a mass of A roads on the map. I’m in a grumpy mood before we’ve even started at the prospect.

In reality the day is a pleasant surprise, but it does start on a dual carriageway A road, exactly as I’d envisaged the whole day (despite a surreal moment when there’s no traffic in either direction other than us). We reach Northwich, and head towards Lymm. We’re making good time, so take a mile’s detour to Mere, where we stop at a hotel where Al kept the gardens for five years.

After wandering round the gardens, being told about how they’ve changed since Al was here, we head towards Leigh on a mixture of minor roads, B roads, and quieter A roads. Lunch is pies from Greggs crouched on Leigh High St., wondering how long until the black clouds ahead will take to start raining on us.

The ride into Bolton is fast and busy, but it’s city riding that I’m used to, and the road to Blackburn, over the moor, turns out not to be busy and surprisingly pleasant, even when the rain comes. We drop down from the moor into Blackburn, past Ewood Park, before a few problems finding our way out towards Clitheroe, and it feels like the day I’ve been dreading is done, and wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d feared.

The road up to Slaidburn is tough, and even though the rain has eased off, we finish the climb in mist on the top.

Arriving in Slaidburn at the youth hostel, we find not only the army lads from Chester, but are amazed to bump into the Flanders from our first night! We swap stories of our progress and problems, and when I tell them about my broken spoke, I’m unsurprised to hear that the Dad not only fixed a broken spoke on the road, but was carrying a chain whip to boot…

Next to the youth hostel is a pub which we’re directed to for dinner, the ‘Hark to Bounty’. I’m hungry, and definitely ready for a pint, so we get cleaned up and changed, and quickly head over. It quickly becomes clear that this is going to be something special. The four real ales on the bar look very promising, and the food smells amazing. The place doesn’t disappoint, we particularly enjoy drinking ‘Pride of Pendle’, and for the only night of the ride, we break our two pint rule to have a half of Theakston’s ‘Old Peculiar’ at the end of the night. Our only regret is that we didn’t realise that you could stay in the pub – we realise this as the army lads have been visited by their army WAGS, and much to our amusement are busy trying to book rooms at the pub rather than their dormitory beds at the youth hostel. There clearly aren’t enough to go round, and negotiations are long and protracted.

All this keeps us entertained, and we have a great meal after a satisfying day’s cycling. We’re definitely in the North of England now, over the half-way point in terms of days, and Scotland is only a couple of days away. We’re starting to feel this really is possible.

We’ve cycled 537.87 miles.

Day 9: Slaidburn to Penrith (70.87 miles)

The hardest thing about the whole journey for me was the tiredness. Not particularly in my legs, but just feeling like I hadn’t had enough sleep, despite the fact that most nights we’re in bed by 10pm, and have at least eight hours sleep. It’s been really starting to get to me for the last few days, and today is not helped by only having a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and no coffee.

Nevertheless, as we get our bikes ready, the sun is shining, and we chat to a cyclist who shared our dormitory, who tells us about cycling through Death Valley. I make a mental note to never contemplate a ride through anywhere with ‘Death’ in its name. There’s a cycle race passing through Slaidburn, and we briefly cycle along with the riders who are carrying nothing heavier than a water bottle and a few bananas, before turning off for a short climb up the hills around Slaidburn, before setting off for a pleasantly rolling ride towards Settle, admiring the fells off to our right.

After Settle, we cycle along a faster, busier A road towards Kirkby-Lonsdale, and I’m glad when we pull off for lunch. As we stop, we realise how hot it is today, and are glad to get into the shade of the café. It’s Sunday, and there are plenty of cyclists out for a ride, including a group of women who have also stopped for their lunch, who seem to be mothers and daughters. We entertain ourselves by evesdropping on their conversation, which alternate between the cost of cardigans and carbon bikes.

The road from Kirkby-Lonsdale to Kendal is quieter, but harder work. It’s now noticeable that Al’s finding the hills easier, and we enjoy a reasonably challenging road that’s quiet enough for us to chat as we go along. Plenty of Sunday cyclists are flying past us in the opposite direction, so we know there must be a descent coming up. We pass Oxenholme train station before we go into Kendal, and I’m surprised how close it is to Kendal. When I’d passed through or stopped there on the train, it always seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. A wrong turning and some closed roads slow us up a little, but soon we’re leaving the penultimate town of the day before our Penrith.

Between Kendal and Penrith is another place I’ve changed our route to take in – the road up the Shap Fells. We’ve decided to do this following the recommendation of my neighbour, and fellow cyclist, Mike. I take it as another sign of Al’s increasing strength on hills that, as we pass a sign warning to drivers in Winter that the summit of Shap can be insurpassable, he doesn’t throw his bike on the side of the road or start swearing at me. The climb and descent is 25 or so miles, and we settle in for a long, hot climb. The road is reasonably quiet, apart from groups of motorcyclists throwing themselves round the corners, and the climbing is of the shallow but unending variety. It quickly becomes apparent why it’s worthwhile though:
These photos don’t really do justice to the sense of awe that we had looking down these valleys – whether it’s because we’d just cycled to the top to see this, or whether the sense of feeling so small in comparison to this landscape doesn’t transmit through a photo, I don’t know. Maybe it was just a lack of oxygen… but it was a very special moment.

The descent is fun too, and we easily maintain a steady 25mph without really turning the pedals. I interrupt my descent when a cyclist comes the other way flags me down, and I stop to show him where we are on the map. It’s now past 5 o’clock, and he says he’s trying to cycle to Preston, but is finding the road up to Shap not much fun – I can’t see how he’s going to get to Preston that day.

Catching up with Al, he leads us in to our destination for the second time this ride, making me smile as he salutes the sign for Penrith with a clenched fist. Another day down.

We find our B&B for the night, glad not to be in a dormitory, and then wander down to an Italian restaurant for a great dinner after a long, hot day.

We’ve now cycled 608.74 miles.

Day 10: Penrith to Moffat

As you probably know, we never reached Moffat. We left Penrith, keeping a high speed on the road to Carlisle, stopping only in Plumpton to post some of the maps we’ve finished with back to Oxford. We enter Carlisle, and stop outside the station for a banana and toilet stop just after eleven. We cycle another mile or so through the city, 18 miles into the day, when Al is hit by a car, who went right through the back of him as Al waited to enter a roundabout.

The driver has accepted total responsibility for the incident, so I won’t dwell on it. By 2 o’clock Al has been released from the hospital, having been x-rayed and told he has escaped with just bad bruising at the base of his spine. He has been given a lot of pain killers, and more for the coming weeks.

It’s clear we’re not going to be able to cycle to Moffat today – even if Al can get his bike fixed, and is up to cycling (which I wasn’t convinced of by any means), the pain killers he has taken have left him unsafe to ride today. A fact attested to by his constant giggling… After a somewhat fraught discussion, we agree that we should call my parents, who are holidaying in Onich, outside Fort William, and ask if we can stay with them for a couple of days. We were due to stop with them for the night in Onich, so in three day’s time, if Al’s feeling up to cycling, we can carry on from there.

We find a hotel that can take us in Carlisle, and spend a miserable night there, trying not to dwell on what’s happened, and largely not succeeding.

Days 11 and 12

The following day my Dad comes down to Carlisle to pick us up, and take us back to Onich. We managed to find a bike shop the day before that would check Al’s bike overnight, and it’s now roadworthy again. The car journey is a long one, and we pass many of the places we should have been cycling through.

It quickly becomes clear that Al is determined to finish the ride from Onich. I’m worried that he’s not being realistic, and should be resting more, and equally can’t find this determination, or enthusiasm to finish the ride. I’ve no doubt that we could have completed the 180 odd miles we have missed. The day from Moffat to Callander was long (93 miles), but it wouldn’t have been as hard as the day from Tavistock to Watchet, and I don’t see anything in those days that we needed to be scared of. But knowing we won’t have cycled the whole route leaves me unclear as to what the point of continuing was.

Day 13: Oncih to Dingwall (98 miles)

That’s still how I feel the next day, as we mount up after a couple of day’s rest. The ride today will almost exclusively follow the Glens next to the Lochs, surrounded by the hills and mountains around us.

We cycle alongside Loch Linhe, which we’ve stayed next to for the last couple of days, and into Fort William, before crossing over to the B road to cycle next to the Caledonian Canal. After this, we follow the A road alongside Loch Lochy, until Fort Augustus, where we stop for lunch with the tourists at the foot of Loch Ness.

The route after lunch takes us to the other side of Loch Ness, away from the A road, and up into the hills overlooking the Loch. We climb steadily up to a small loch, Loch Tarff, before cycling along the ridge, and then dropping back down to the side of Loch Ness. The road is now narrow with passing places, until it widens to two lanes again and we reach Inverness.

From Inverness we skirt the Beauly Firth towards Beauly, before turning right towards Muir of Ord, and then Dingwall. By now we’re pretty tired, and it has become clear that my estimate of 85 miles for the day is out. Luckily our B&B is easy to find, and we pull up outside, just short of 100 miles today.

Our hostess is clearly going to look after us, directing Al to the bath and me to the tea. It’s been a day of ‘autopilot’ cycling, helped, no doubt, by the couple of rest days we’ve had.

We’ve now cycled 725 miles.

Day 14: Dingwall to Altnaharra (59.05 miles)

We start the next day with an excellent breakfast (which for me includes the revelation of why you should make porridge with salt), and leave Dingwall by following the shoreline of the Cromarty Firth as far as Alness. From there, we take the B road across the peninsula. It’s on this road that I really start to enjoy the cycling again – the road is reasonably challenging, with a decent amount of climbing, while the scenery is just gorgeous, and by the time we start to descend down the peninsula, the views over the Dornoch Firth in front of us are just spectacular.

The landscape today is less mountainous – the peaks are still high, but are less dense, which leaves you with a sense of scale and isolation that the roads around Loch Ness didn’t convey.

We reach the town of Bonar Bridge, and decide to stop for lunch early, being uncertain of what there would be on the road ahead. We find a great tea room which serves fantastic lime cheesecake, and end up talking to a couple next to us, who turn out to be from Kidlington. It feels odd to be sat in North Scotland talking about Oxford, but the realisation that our journey is coming to an end makes it enjoyable. They’re also nice enough to give us some money towards our fundraising efforts.
From Bonar Bridge we head towards Lairg, and this afternoon is the first time we really start to have a problem with midges and other insects in Scotland. Stopping cycling is now a question of endurance, and when I turn round to check behind me, I can see a cloud of insects following. After Lairg the road becomes a single track with passing places, which feels odd as it’s designated as an A road. We see very few travellers, and the sense of isolation and desolation is overwhelming, but exhilarating too.

The road starts to undulate as we head towards our destination of Altnaharra, and the weather suddenly seems uncertain – black clouds cluster round the peaks and pass across the blue sky, before disappearing again. Finally as we’re about five miles from Altnaharra it starts to rain. We pick up the pace and push on, spurred on by the weather and the prospect of a warm shower and hot tea. A combination of rain, sun cream, and clouds of insects mean we arrive in a state of supreme disgustingness:

We find our B&B for the night and are hurried in by Mandy, our enthusiastic hostess, just before the rain breaks, and I sit in the conservatory, drinking tea, and marvelling at how quickly the clouds engulf the area:


An hour and half later the sky is blue again.

Altnaharra is barely a village, but our hosts are extremely welcoming, make us dinner, offer us the use of their internet connection and playstation. In a day for meeting ex-Oxfordians, it turns out Mandy originally worked in Oxford before moving to Altnaharra. We’re pointed in the direction of Altnaharra’s hotel for a pint, and wander over at about half past eight (having been told they often close early for the night if no-one’s in there). After ten minutes, we manage to locate a barman, and have a pint while Al teaches me darts games. The bar wall never knew what hit it. Our talk is now of finishing the ride, and John O’Groats. Despite the disappointment of the ride overall, today has been a really enjoyable day’s cycling, and we’re looking forward to the next day, and seeing what the Northernmost point of Scotland looks like, even if we anticipate a low-key entrance into John O’Groats. It doesn’t feel like the achievement it should do, but being in such a tiny place, so far North, and in such a dramatic setting, leaves us with some sense of excitement.

On our penultimate day, we’ve now cycled 784.05 miles.